The creature hit the ground like a sack of bones and rage.
It stood—barely human, its body contorted like a broken puppet strung back together with malice. Patches of flesh peeled back to reveal raw muscle stitched by something not natural. Its eyes gleamed violet, too bright for a place with no light.
Elias didn't hesitate.
He moved in a blink—Emberstep flared beneath his heels, launching him forward. Veyrion cleaved through the air, meeting bone and rot with a sizzling hiss. The blade carved deep—but not enough.
The creature didn't bleed.
It burned.
Sparks erupted from its wound, and a guttural roar tore from its throat—a sound like multiple voices crying out in agony.
Then it grabbed Elias mid-swing.
He didn't expect the speed.
He was thrown across the lobby, crashing into a rusted gurney. Metal shrieked. Pain bloomed across his back like wildfire.
Arden shouted something—but Elias didn't hear it. His heartbeat drowned the world.
Not from fear.
From memory.
---
Elyndros. Battle of the Abyss. He stood against twelve abominations alone. They had eyes like this one. Screamed like this one. And when he killed them, they whispered "thank you."
---
He rose.
Fury boiled beneath his skin.
"Not again," he muttered. "Not this time."
He gripped Veyrion tighter and whispered, "Soulburn."
The runes lit red-hot. The blade pulsed, drawing from his core.
Magic wasn't clean here. It didn't flow—it fought.
But Elias had become a master of will.
He stepped forward, calm.
The creature lunged—and Elias met it head-on, driving his blade through its sternum. It shrieked, but Elias didn't stop. His left hand sparked with eldritch symbols, fingers tracing a rune mid-air.
"Sever."
The rune detonated inside the creature. Its chest exploded outward in a burst of black smoke and ash.
It didn't scream again.
---
Arden stood stunned. "You really are from beyond…"
Elias didn't respond.
He turned to the rift. It was gone. Fully sealed. But its echo remained.
"I need answers," he said.
"And you'll get them," Arden replied. "But not here. Come with me. There's a safehouse. And people—others like you, who've seen things. Maybe not crossed the veil, but… touched it."
---
Side Thread: The Forgotten Files
They drove for hours, the city melting into countryside. Arden's car was old but fast. The kind of car that had hidden compartments.
"Do you know how many veil fractures are active?" Elias asked.
"Too many," Arden said. "We track them. We can close some. Others… we just quarantine."
Elias turned his gaze out the window. "And the government?"
Arden scoffed. "Most of them don't even believe it's real. The few who do think it's some terrorist tech. But there's something bigger, Elias. Something older."
He handed Elias a file—codename: Pale Choir.
A secret organization. Ancient. Their symbols matched some Elias had seen in Elyndros—specifically on the altars of the mindbinders.
"The veil didn't just leak through," Arden said. "It was opened. Slowly. Deliberately."
Elias felt his stomach twist.
"Why?"
"Sacrifice. Power. Control."
And then Arden added something that turned Elias's blood to ice.
"They knew you were coming back."
---
Flashback Fragment: Before the Return
He remembered the last moment in Elyndros.
Kneeling before the god-forged gate, holding the soulcore of the world's final guardian in his hands.
He was given a choice: stay and rule… or return.
He chose to go back. Back to the world where his mother waited. His best friend. His brother. Where laughter once lived.
He never questioned it.
But now… now he wondered if it had been manipulated.
Was the gate opened from the other side?
---
The Safehouse
It looked like a barn. It wasn't.
Beneath it: reinforced steel, arcane wards, and twelve survivors. Each different. All scarred. One blind girl who claimed she dreamed of the veil before it bled through.
She touched Elias's hand.
"You're the key," she said. "But you're also the knife."
She smiled like she'd made peace with something terrifying.
---
That night, Elias couldn't sleep.
Not because of what he'd seen—but because of what he hadn't.
He checked the network Arden gave him. Surveillance reports. Satellite photos. Blacked-out documents.
And then he saw it.
A timestamped video.
The day before he returned, a veil fracture opened in his hometown.
The same street where his family lived.
The clip showed a crawler. Three meters tall.
And something worse—a summoning circle burning on his old front lawn.
He paused the video.
And stared.
His childhood home. His family. Gone.
Not an accident.
A sacrifice.
---